Seattle near the top for pay raises

AUBREY COHE, Seattle Post-Intelligencer

By AUBREY COHEN, SEATTLEPI.COM STAFF

Published 4:39 pm, Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Seattle-based PayScale reported Wednesday that wages rose 0.5 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier. There was considerable variation, however, among cities. Here's the ranking of the 20 largest metro areas, starting with No. 20 Miami, where wages fell 2.1 percent.
Photo: Joe Raedle, Getty Images

Nationwide, pay was up 0.5 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier, PayScale reported. But pay rose by much more in some metro areas, while falling in others.

"Our results show the economy is on a steady, but very tepid recovery with wage growth rising at a slow rate," Katie Bardaro, PayScale's lead economist, said in the report. "We anticipate the trend of sluggish overall wage growth to continue in 2014 with a few industries such as science, biotech, and healthcare showing periodic gains that are more significant. "

Adjusting for inflation, wages have dropped nearly 8 percent since 2006, she added. PayScale expects wages to rise 0.3 percent this quarter from the previous quarter and 0.8 percent year over year.

The information, media and telecommunications had the biggest pay jump, 1.4 percent from a year earlier, while arts, entertainment and recreation fell the most, down 1.1 percent.

Click through the gallery above to see how the nation's 20 largest metropolitan areas fared.